In Panama, the major colonization area is Darien. Plans have
been developed for directing the process of colonization toward a
rational management of the environment and to avoid a
concentration of land in a few large cattle farms, which occurred
in the interior agricultural provinces (Los Santos, Herrera,
Veraguas, and Chiriquí) of the country (see Heckadon 1983). Due
to a lack of funding, and an apparent lack of awareness or
concern with potential problems in Darien, these plans for the
most part have not been implemented. Several limited attempts
have been made to develop overseer agencies, which would be
charged with co-ordinating the process of colonization in both an
ecological and socio-economic sense, but these have not had the
desired effect.

An additional element in Darien colonization is hoof-and-mouth
disease among cattle. This disease has been eradicated in North
and Central America, but still exists in Colombia. The Darien
National Park is a forested buffer which runs the length of the
Panama-Colombia border; it was originally the responsibility of
the Inter-American Commission for the Prevention of Hoof and
Mouth Disease (COPFA). With the extension of the Inter-American
Highway into Darien, the naturally existing forest buffer is
increasingly threatened by colonizing farmers. As the forest
shrinks, the accidental introduction of the disease becomes more
likely.

A new attempt to oversee the process of colonization is being
generated by the National Environmental Commission. This
commission enjoys government support but is still largely
unfinanced. The problems of Darien are overshadowed by other
environmental problems of national concern: the management of the
Panama Canal watershed is a primary concern for national policy
makers, and the environmental degradation associated with the
Cerro Colorado mining operation attracts a good part of the
national environmental interest. At the present time, a very
rapid spontaneous colonization is occurring along new access
roads for mining and oil pipeline maintenance in Chiriquí and
Bocas del Toro, in the western part of the country; while this
colonization is smaller scale than that which is occurring in
Darien, it is much more rapid and eye-catching since it affects
virgin forest areas. Darien, on the other hand, represents a
long-standing colonization process which may not attract public
attention despite its national and international implications.

In Darien, several opposed land-use practices can be seen. By
far the most visible practice is the clearing of forest land for
the production of annual crops, followed by the sowing of
pastures. This pattern is practiced by the colonists from the
interior of the country in accordance with land-use practices
from their native provinces. A second practice, contiguous to the
"interiorano" clearing, is the maintenance of forest
areas by Chocó and Kuna Indians. Reserves have been established
through various means within the colonization area, and the
Indians continue to practice a minimal intensity agriculture and
long-fallow system in the forests which cover their land. A third
adaptation is that of the "black" population, mostly
Colombian immigrants, who, like the hispanic Darienitas
(non-lndian natives of Darien), rely on fishing as a major source
of income and practice a limited agriculture which notably
focuses on plantain production as a cash crop. Many of the more
recent immigrants are adopting aspects of the Indian and
Darienita land management strategies, but the process of land
conversion from forests to other uses is still widespread.

As a complement to the land colonization activities, large
lumber concessions are granted by the Directorate of Renewable
Natural Resources. Farmers clear land and sell wood to
independent lumber middlemen, and at the same time the
concessions are said to promote occupation of certain areas to
ensure a labour force. A certain amount of tension has been
generated between lumber interests and farmers over ownership of
land and logs, leading to increasing pressure on forest reserves
and Indian lands.

At present, the only obstacle to the conversion of Darien into
large cattle ranches is the National Hoof and Mouth Disease
Control Programme, which restricts the movement of cattle from
Darien to other parts of the country. The inability to market
animals has reduced the desirability of Darien for commercial
ranching. The agrarian reform agency is understaffed and
underfunded and lacks support from higher level decision makers
to enforce agrarian reform objectives for the area. In general,
government agencies are weakly represented in Darien and yet are
the only force which can apply environmental controls at present.
Their activities are hampered by inadequate funding and a lack of
clear directives as to what national policy toward the
development of the area is at any given moment.

Costa Rica

After El Salvador, Costa Rica is the Central American country
with least opportunity for new land colonization in humid
tropical areas. Agrarian reform programmes have occupied much of
the national territory, and a vigorous conservation programme
involving the formation of national parks, Indian reservations,
wildlife preserves, and watershed protection zones has restricted
access to much of the remaining noncultivated areas.

Land-use changes in Costa Rica are now largely restricted to
changes in intensity of agricultural exploitation. Politically
active peasant groups take charge of identifying and occupying
lands which are underutilized (see Downing and Matteson 1965); in
fact, some of these areas are secondary forest areas with some
primary forest remnants, but there is little sense of
"agricultural frontier," since these are pockets of
forest which have been bypassed by the earlier colonization
movement due to problems of accessibility. The area of most
activity is in the Atlantic lowlands of the country, and the
Agrarian Development Institute has begun a major project in
conjunction with USAID (US Agency of International Development)
to consolidate and regulate the colonization process in that
area. In 1984 there was a violent invasion of the southern
Pacific highlands, in the Altos de Cotón, near the Panamanian
border. This invasion affects both private farms and forest areas
under National Park Service and Forestry Directorate control. The
resolution of this invasion is working its way through the courts
at the time of this writing.

As a response to the unavailability of new lands, a process of
agricultural intensification of humid tropical land use is seen
in Costa Rica. The production of cacao, tropical spices, palm
heart, ornamental plants, and especially coffee has received
increasing attention from both government agencies and farmers.
Costa Rican farmers have been very active in the development of
agro-forestry systems to intensify land use. The association of
forest species with permanent crops such as coffee and cacao
offers the benefits of both improved soil structure and fertility
(e.g. in the case of Erythrina sp. [Russo 1982] and lnga sp.
[León 1966] for coffee shade) and increased income from the sale
of valuable lumber species such as laurel (Cordia alliodora) or
cedro (Cedrela odorata) associated with cacao and coffee (Rosero
and Gewald 1979; Beer 1982a, 1982b; Heuveldop and Espinoza 1983).
These techniques have been empirically developed by farmers and
are cited as positive landuse examples and as promising avenues
for further development research.

The pressures on the limited land area, and the relatively
strong position of agriculture in the national economy of the
country, have promoted biologically appropriate land uses which
may serve as models for other areas of Central America.
Nevertheless, there are also areas of serious environmental
problems, especially in the newer colonization areas, which will
need special attention.

Nicaragua

Interest in the colonization of humid tropical lands in
Nicaragua has fluctuated in the past 40 years. The "Proyecto
Rigoberto Cabezas" (PRICA) was a sweeping plan to
incorporate a large part of the forested Atlantic zone of
Nicaragua (more than 4 million ha) into the national economy by
settling it with farmers (IICAMAG-BID 1978).

Although the project was said to be directed mainly to small
farmers, statistical data show the presence of large farms in the
colonization area, which were unofficially reported to have been
granted to government supporters. The colonization process was
largely based on the assumption that the Atlantic coast could
become a major production area for basic grains, to compensate
for the conversion of grain production areas in the western
coastal area to commercial crops. Unfortunately, the progress
reports of this project and most documents were either dispersed
or destroyed in the aftermath of the revolution of 1979, so
detailed accounts of the colonization process are not readily
available.

The PRICA project was especially notable for its
overestimation of the availability of arable land in the area. In
1978, the Nueva Guinea area was estimated to be 33 per cent
suitable for all kinds of crop production (IICA-MAG-BID 1978),
while later studies seem to indicate that this figure should have
been placed much lower. The resident population at the time of
the project was also severely underestimated; early PRICA survey
teams found the "uninhabited" forest area to be so
filled with spontaneous colonists at the beginning of the project
as to make further settlement difficult (Taylor 1969). Estimates
of the current population range from 85,000 to 100,000 (Deve
1983; INETER, pers. comm. 1984), approximately 16 persons per
square kilometre (this is the same as the average national
population density).

The most visible outcome of the project is the colony of Nueva
Guinea, which is now a large community of small grain-producing
farmers. Soil exhaustion is reported, and a new development plan
incorporating perennial crops has been implemented, but no
results can yet be seen. Although there has been a tendency for
farmers of Nueva Guinea to sell exhausted land and move on into
the surrounding forest area, this has largely been curtailed by
guerrilla activity, and the formerly dispersed agricultural
population has now been concentrated in villages within the area.
Nicaragua's humid Atlantic region is striking for the disease and
market problems plaguing the development of permanent crops; a
variety have been tried, but none has been completely successful.
Many of these same crops are now being incorporated into
permanent-crop development plans.

Colonization is taking place along new roads connecting the
Atlantic coast to the rest of the country. In the northern part
of Zelaya, a new road connects Puerto Cabezas and Managua,
passing through Siuna. In the south, a new road to connect Nueva
Guinea and Bluefields is under construction. Both roads have been
conduits for colonists, although in both areas new colonization
seems to have been slowed by guerrilla warfare. The Miskito
population from the northern Atlantic zone has been relocated
along the SiunaPuerto Cabezas road. The road from Nueva Guinea to
Bluefields has seen armed conflicts, and both farmers and logging
crews have abandoned the area.

A major plan for the conversion of the entire Atlantic coast
to permanent crop production has been outlined (EMACRA 1984;
MIDINRA 1981), but it is underfinanced and suffers from a lack of
biological research support and background experience (such as
field trials and germ-plasm collections). Efforts have been made
to consolidate research and implementation efforts of different
government agencies involved in the development of the area, but
this consolidation is still far from complete.

Honduras

The sparsely populated parts of eastern and north-eastern
Honduras have received major influxes of colonists in recent
years. The mechanization of commercial export crops in southern
Honduras combined with a high population density has forced
farmers to migrate to new areas (De Walt et al. 1982; Smith-Hinds
1979). The eastern and northeastern sections of Honduras are the
areas of the most intensive colonization. The most extensive area
is in Olancho, but there is also colonization in Gracias A Diós,
Colón (Agáun Valley), and in Atlántida (in the mountains near
Trujillo). Several surveys have identified major unexploited
areas which would be appropriate for agriculture; it is pointed
out in these surveys that a large portion of the good
agricultural lands in Honduras is still under forest (FAO 1967).

Two major tendencies in Honduran colonization can be
distinguished. The first is the creation of government projects
which are heavily involved in the establishment and design of new
communities and agricultural systems. This has occurred most
notably in the Aguán River Valley (Díaz A. 1974; Martínez and
German 1974), and similar but much less well-endowed efforts are
being made in areas such as the Agalta, Guayape, and Patuca river
valleys (MRN-Lavalin 1983; Smith-Hinds 1979). The objective in
these projects is the establishment of agro-industrial
enterprises for commercial products, including cotton, where
possible, and banana and oil palm, among others.

The other tendency is spontaneous colonization, with little
attempt to control or direct production patterns. In Dulce Nombre
de Culmi and the northern bank of the Patuca, farmers have
arrived before the completion of roads. Refugee settlements of
Nicaraguans and Salvadoreans tend to follow this pattern, with a
minimum of technical assistance or guidance. Nevertheless,
government services are provided for spontaneous settlers,
although not in the comprehensive manner of a
"directed" effort.

Both patterns of colonization bear major similarities. Despite
attempts to promote certain crops within agro-industrial
co-operatives in planned colonization areas, an
"unplanned" population inevitably establishes itself
outside the recommended guidelines. This population consists of
disenchanted co-operative members, previous residents of the
area, or colonists attracted by the government services and
improved communication associated with the agro-industrial
project. In the Aguán Valley, a considerable population of
unincorporated farmers exists, which endangers the future of the
watershed due to the use of shifting agricultural practices on
surrounding hillsides (Van Ginneken 1981). The overall pattern in
both kinds of colonization is one of large commercial farms in
fertile bottom lands, surrounded by small farmers in the less
desirable hilly lands. In the Aguán Valley, as in other areas,
the large commercial farms may be either privately or
co-operatively owned.

Honduras has what may be the most vigorous process of new land
colonization in Central America, which continues into the
considerable remaining forest areas of the country. Nevertheless,
much of this remaining area does not have soils or climatic
conditions appropriate for traditional agriculture and will
require the development of new techniques and marketing channels
to permit their appropriate use. A notable aspect of colonization
in Honduras is that it is well endowed with experiments in
methods for improving soil conservation, land use, forest
management, etc. A major Canadian effort is experimenting with
new forms of peasant forest exploitation, and a variety of
efforts to encourage improved soil management practices are being
promoted by CARE, the World Food Program, and the Peace Corps.

The colonization of Honduras holds both great promise and
grave environmental dangers. Due to the existence of poor soils
and large areas of unclaimed forest, Honduran farmers have opted
for extensive land-use practices; forests are felled and land is
cultivated for a short time before being abandoned or sown to
pasture (see Murray 1981; Betancourt and Rafsnider 1982). Little
progress has been made in the development of farming systems
which are stable over a period of many years. While the full
impact of this "technological underdevelopment" has
been cushioned by the presence of new lands, the analysis of the
land conservation experiments mentioned above takes on a special
urgency as remaining forest areas shrink.

Guatemala

The colonization efforts of Guatemala have been controversial.
Colonization is occurring mainly in the Franja Transversal del
Norte (FTN), a strip of low-lying tropical land of 8,800 km2
bordering the densely populated highlands of the centre of the
country. With a total population of 172,704, the FTN has a
population density of 17 per square kilometre, as compared to a
national average of 69 per square kilometre. Spontaneous
colonization of the area began before the establishment of
planned projects, at least as early as the l950s (Adams 1965;
Carter 1969). The FTN projects set as goals the integration of
the new lands into the national economy and, to a certain extent,
the improvement of agricultural practices and the encouragement
of appropriate systems of cultivation.

The FTN is a large area, and projects first began at its
western end. A new project is being planned for the eastern end
of the FTN, which, until now, has not been greatly affected by
colonization plans. Similar to the colonization work in other
parts of the FTN, the objective of this new project is to improve
communications and government services, but with an emphasis on
the introduction of new production systems.

The process of colonization at one point was
"directed" by INTA (Instituto Nacional de
Transformación Agraria), in the sense that it was relatively
independent in defining strategies and implementation. A general
characteristic of current colonization efforts in the FTN is the
attempt to consolidate a range of government services in
specifically identified "development poles." The
objective is to ensure an adequate provision of services such as
education, health care, transportation, and agricultural credit
and extension in 44 fairly remote areas. The consolidation
strategy leaves it unclear whether colonization activities should
be considered "directed" (since they count on
large-scale government support) or "undirected," since
this support is merely the provision of a full range of
government services by the respective agencies which would be
expected in any agricultural region.

By size, the major colonization area of Guatemala is Petén,
the northern lowland province adjoining the FTN. Petén has
followed a singular history of development, where control of all
activities has been exercised by FYDEP (Comisión pare el Fomento
de Desarollo Económico del Peten), an agency created to manage
Petén. FYDEP does not respond to or co-ordinate with most other
government agencies, such as those in the agricultural sector. A
general plan for the colonization of Petén. has been developed
by FYDEP, but its focus is production rather than the settlement
of population, and it gives great weight to cattle ranching.

Like Honduras, Guatemala has experienced a variety of land
colonization and management schemes which are of great potential
value if they could be carefully analysed. Changes in the
administrative and tenancy structures of colonies, attempts to
introduce new crops, and the attempt to create "development
poles" are all interesting innovations whose evaluation
could provide important insights both for Guatemala and other
countries of the tropics.

To a greater extent than in Honduras, farmers in Guatemala
have developed stable production systems, based to a certain
extent on communal land management and the use of low-intensity
agricultural practices. One of the most intriguing strategies is
the use of velvet bean (Stizolobium sp.) in crop rotations; this
legume is vigorous and produces a dense mat of vegetation which
controls weed growth and which can be mulched to provide
nutrients for subsequent crops. First reported by Carter (1969),
it has since been adopted in the Chocón area (Ruano 1981), where
its use continues to spread.

A major preoccupation with the process of colonization is the
extent to which it represents a one-time exploitation of
accumulated biological "capital," in the form of trees
and topsoil, but which gives rise to degenerative forms of land
use. Given the long period of time required for the regeneration
of this biological capital, such a process leads to long-term
impoverishment. Nevertheless, issues are obscured by the
different, and at times competing, needs of agriculture and the
management of natural resources.

A common complaint is that colonists are land
"speculators" rather than farmers. This complaint is
most often heard in Costa Rica, but it is also voiced in Panama
and Honduras. "Speculators" are individuals who
manipulate the process of agrarian reform and colonization to
acquire land at very low prices, with little intention of
farming. Their intention may be to harvest wood or merely to
clear the land to "improve" it (i.e. improve its sale
value). These individuals are obviously prejudicial to the
rational development of agricultural resources.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to clearly differentiate land
speculators from legitimate colonist farmers. Colonists may be
faced with any number of unexpected but legitimate conditions-for
example illness or economic loss-which require that they sell
their farm. In fact, it may well be that selling is the only
alternative in many humid tropical colonization areas, due to the
limited agricultural capacity of the land and despite that
colonists cleared land in good faith and expected to be able to
farm.

The majority of land which is now being colonized is of poor
agricultural quality. Farmers are misled by the exuberance of
standing vegetation and by the observable soil quality and do not
realize that these are not conditions which will persist after
land clearance. Even in cases where farmers know of the problems
which lie ahead, they often do not know of alternative
technologies which would permit the longterm management of the
land and avoid the loss of fertility. Given the current state of
agricultural technological knowledge, temporary cultivation and
the sale of land is the only possible livelihood available to
many farmers. Costa Rica is the most fortunate of the Central
American countries in the quality of its agricultural land in
humid tropical regions, but even there, the best lands have now
been occupied.

In both Nicaragua and Guatemala, and in the directed
colonization projects of Honduras, land tenure relationships have
been altered to avoid the possibility of speculation. Land is
allocated to co-operative groups, and individual sales of land
are not possible. This eliminates the possibility of non-farming
speculators and provides support for farmers who might otherwise
be driven out of farming by short-term financial problems. The
experiences in Nicaragua are still too recent to evaluate, but in
both Guatemala and Honduras, co-operative farming groups have
suffered from administrative problems, which do not allow the
realization of the planned economic and agricultural goals nor
seem to notably improve the quality of land management.

A series of observations can be made which generally apply to
the process of new land colonization in Central America.

A fundamental problem observed in the development of new lands
for colonization is the lack of clear definition of environmental
objectives for the colonization activity and of the assignation
of institutional authority to implement these objectives.

Environmental guidelines tend to be defined and enforced
within traditional institutional lines. Land use with trees is
assigned to forestry, land use with crops is assigned to the
Ministry of Agriculture, land use for protection is assigned to
parks or natural resources. The diffusion of authority and the
competition which ensues for control over project funds leads to
a definition of project activities so as to conform with the
administrative mandate of a national institution rather than to
the development needs of a region.

No successful methods have been developed for the regulation
of environmental factors in colonization. The most usual
situation is for one government agency to be assigned as an
environmental "watch-dog" over another agency which
manages colonization. There is a tendency for this to develop
into a gadfly relationship, where environmental recommendations
are seen as unrealistic and a nuisance. Information flow is
impeded, and new activities may even be intentionally concealed
from the oversight agency to avoid problems.

Another fundamental problem observed in the development of new
lands for colonization is the lack of clear definition of social
objectives for the colonization activity and assignment of
institutional authority to implement these objectives. Clear
tendencies toward land concentration and environmental
degradation develop in many colonization areas because no
institution has the mandate to observe and correct these
tendencies or because policies for recognizing (or not
recognizing) land titles have not been sufficiently co-ordinated
with overall social and environmental goals to ensure that they
have the desired effects. The most destructive problems
environmentally currently associated with the colonization of
humid areas have to do with patterns of title holding.

At one extreme, land occupants who are given insufficient
guarantees of tenancy have no incentive for maintaining the
long-term productivity of the land. Forest cover is sold or
burned, and the land is "mined'? of nutrients for a few
seasons. The major concern is how to extract the most benefit
from the land over a short period of occupancy.

At the other extreme, the ability to clearly establish title
over land leads to attempts to assert title for the purpose of
resale rather than for farming. Farm improvements are designed to
improve resale value rather than to ensure land productivity or
the permanence of the farming enterprise.

Some attempts have been made to give clear title to land but
prevent individual alienation through co-operative ownership
arrangements. These have not been evaluated to analyse their
efficacy. In any case, the problem is complex and depends on such
factors as the local market for land, the condition of export
markets, and the national demand for small-farmer crops. It is
likely that a number of alternative solutions must be proposed
even within single countries.

The process of colonization seems to proceed with a minimum
understanding of preexisting patterns of land tenure and land
tenancy. Areas are occupied on the assumption that they are
unoccupied and on the assumption of certain patterns of land
holding for occupants. Insufficient effort is directed to
discovering patterns of occupancy and regularizing these to
conform to the social and environmental objectives of the general
colonization programmes.

Colonies can be seen to replicate national agricultural
conditions rather than create new ones. This was nowhere clearer
than in Nicaragua, where the best roads in the colonization zone
were built to service the large farms of government officials in
Rama rather than the growing colonist population of Nueva Guinea.
In similar fashion, newly colonized lands tend to produce
"traditional" small-farmer crops, especially grains.
Lands are then absorbed into larger farms as commercial elements
are introduced into the new areas; these commercial elements also
follow a "traditional" strategy of establishing
extensive cattle ranches.

The expansion of national agricultural practices into newly
colonized lands tends to bring along the generally accepted
"solutions" to agricultural development problems.

The establishment of large-scale enterprises for export crops
is an explicit goal in some colonization efforts, where
innovative forms of tenure or participation are proposed to
ensure that these enterprises will benefit a maximum number of
farmers (rather than revert to a few large land holders). In most
countries, this is a generalized strategy used by agrarian-reform
agencies for all regions and not only in colonization areas.

Mechanization and increased use of agro-chemicals are frequent
recommendations for new co-operative enterprises. These measures
are quite clearly inappropriate in humid environments, where
disturbance of the thin layer of soil or soil compaction are
major problems, or where soil conditions do not permit the
effective use of fertilizers by plants. These are clear examples
of generalized solutions which are inappropriate for humid areas
but which are routinely recommended on the basis of experiences
in other life zones.

Policy changes in colonization areas seem to correspond more
to national political conditions than to the success or failure
of programmes in the field. Changes in agricultural strategies or
development objectives, or the mere neglect of established
programmes, are the product of budgetary factors or changes in
high-level personnel within the relevant government agencies.

Farmers of humid zones now being incorporated into national
"colonization" programmes have developed some valuable
land management strategies which have been underutilized by
government programmes. For example:

(i) The use of Stizolobium spp. for weed control and soil
improvement in Guatemala is a potential low-cost alternative to
the use of agricultural chemicals. The acceptance and cultivation
of cardamom is an example of successful adaptation of a
non-traditional crop to the needs of humid-land agriculture. The
tradition of communal activities in general, and especially
communal forests in Indian communities, is an alternative which
should be considered as a model for development in areas of poor
soils.

(ii) In Panama, farmers of Darien have been involved in
commercial plantain production for a number of years. Their
experiences in site and varietal selection can provide bases for
decision-making or at least for further research by colonization
technicians.

(iii) In Costa Rica, farmers of humid areas have experimented
with a wide variety of alternative crops and strategies.
Agro-forestry combinations, such as Cordia alliodora with
pastures or with cacao, are production systems which address both
the ecological and economic problems of humidland colonization.
Smallscale producers of export crops, such as banana, palm heart,
and spices, may serve as examples for development in other areas.

(iv) There is also a need to document the general process of
land-use decisionmaking by individuals in colonization areas. An
understanding of which factors are in fact taken into
consideration in decisions permits the development of projects or
policies which address these decision criteria and which will be
more likely to have the desired effect on general patterns of
land use.

There is a generalized need for the investigation into
alternative cropping strategies and most importantly, into the
design and testing of these strategies in the field.

Due to the lack of continuity in interest in tropical areas,
there are few permanent national centres of investigation in
humid tropical areas. As a result, there are few data on
long-term outcomes of patterns of production system management
and few currently maintained programmes of germ plasm collection,
testing, and improvement. Most crop development activities in
humid tropical areas must begin, for example, with the
establishment of nurseries, germ plasm collections, and varietal
trials, which require years to establish properly and to produce
significant levels of output, both in plant material and in
scientific information. As an unfortunate result, projects must
frequently rely on inappropriate germ plasm, either of inferior
quality or from inappropriate sources for climatic reasons, to
establish new crops.

Recommendations as to improved practices are most likely to be
appropriate if they are based on local testing, which can
demonstrate the viability of the recommended production system
under actual field conditions. This, of course, is a goal seldom
achieved, but it is one toward which activity should be directed
to ensure the continued development of improved, appropriate
production systems. These systems should include not only annual
and perennial crops but forestry production. In humid tropical
areas, much of the soil is best suited to forestry; without the
presentation of realistic alternatives, farmers are obliged to
enter into degenerative annual cropping strategies which offer no
possibility of sustained prosperity. Special attention must be
given to the development of forestry production systems which are
viable through entire production cycles and which are manageable
within the legal, organizational, and economic constraints of
small farmers or co-operative groups.

At present there exists a large body of experience with humid
tropical colonization and humid tropical land use generated
through the great number of national and international
development projects directed to the resolution of the problems
of these areas. Nevertheless, very little evaluation has
surfaced. Agencies obviously do internal evaluations, but these
tend to be tied to institutionally defined operational goals such
as budgetary execution and number of registered participants,
rather than overall evaluations or comparisons of the strategies
employed. Competing government agencies are unwilling to be too
frank when this may result in the re-allocation of their scarce
budget to alternative agencies, so both intra-agency and
inter-agency evaluations inevitably will reflect the
institutional bias. Nevertheless, a series of questions of
extreme importance for the process of colonization have been
addressed and treated at some length, but little attempt has been
made to collect and analyse these experiences at a national or
regional level.

A variety of organizational strategies for colonization have
been utilized in Central America. Co-operatives, individual
parcels, and mixed farms have all been tried, but not evaluated.

Different strategies for land control have also been tested.
Outright land titling, group ownership, restricted ownership, and
sales restrictions may be tools for achieving certain goals in
the establishment of certain colonization strategies, such as the
avoidance of migratory agriculture and the speculation in land
which leads to its concentration in large "latifundio"
type farms.

Type of government support, for example, technical support,
infrastructure support, and overall planning, are alternatives
which dramatically affect the cost of implementing new land
settlements. Unfortunately, the activities of different agencies
overlap in most areas, so at a programme level it is difficult to
distinguish patterns of government support. At a community level,
it would be possible to define what support has been provided,
who has benefited, and the overall effect on the community.